


Hair.

by jhsdhalr



Category: Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhsdhalr/pseuds/jhsdhalr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen disobeys Jack with unfortunate results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair.

"It's a Arrcanna Orange" said Jack, smiling happily at the small tree sitting in the middle of the Hub " Ianto found it this morning in the Tourist Office".

"Yes, and bringing it in here nearly killed me" Ianto complained.

They all stood looking at the tree. It was purple. It was about Tosh's height and had purple bark, purple leaves and small, purple fruits which did indeed look like purple oranges.

After a moment, Owen exclaimed loudly "why is it called an Orange? It's purple!"

"On Arrcanna" Jack explained "purple is orange. They haven't a word for orange."

"Isn't that a bit confusing?" Tosh asked.

"Not on Arrcanna" Jack replied, looking at the tree as if he had never seen anything so lovely in his entire life "the fruit is edible by the way. It tastes great. Try it."

"I ought to test it first" Owen sighed.

"No need" Jack answered, plucking a fruit off a branch and starting to eat it straight away, peel and all "it's quite safe as long as you don't eat more than two at one time."

"You're eating the PEEL!" gasped Gwen loudly.

"It's edible peel" said Jack "tastes a bit like toffee. Try it."

They all tried an Arrcanna Orange and found that they were indeed delicious. They were so delicious that they all, including Jack, ate another one as soon as they had finished the first. After she had finished her second Orange, Gwen picked a third Orange off the tree.

"NO" Jack shouted at her "you can only eat two at once. I already said that. Didn't you hear me?"

"Oh you and your stupid orders" Gwen replied, through a mouthful of purple orange peel "it's an orange, isn't it? No-one ever had an ill effect from eating three oranges unless they were allergic to them and I'm not." She finished the orange rapidly and then ate a fourth. Nothing happened. She spread her arms and did a twirl in front of the rest of the team. "See" she said, in a smug tone "nothing happened." She went off to her work station with a little skip and a jump, humming some tuneless ditty under her breath.

"It has a delayed effect" Jack remarked, as they all watched Gwen skipping off.

"Why didn't you tell HER that?" asked Tosh.

"No-one else ate a third orange, did they?" Jack answered.

"Well, you said not to" Tosh muttered.

"Exactly" said Jack.

"What happens if you eat three at once then?" asked Ianto.

"Well" said Jack slowly "you get a bit-----hairy."

"How hairy is a bit?" Owen asked with a grin.

"Oh, quite hairy" Jack said "but it stops after a while, and then you go back to normal." He laughed.

"We should tell Gwen" Tosh sighed.

"She wont believe it" Jack told her "she never believes anything anyone tells her."

"Perhaps she will after this" Ianto remarked.

Much later Gwen and Rhys went out to dinner in an Italian restaurant. They eventually went to bed at around midnight after their evening out together. Much to Rhys's relief, Gwen even refrained from talking about how great Jack was for a change. However, as soon as they were in bed, she started talking about Jack again. Rhys liked Jack but he got tired of Gwen talking about him and how important her job was all the time, and she never listened to anything he said about his work, even if he'd had a really bad day.

The following morning, Rhys left for work quite early when Gwen was still asleep. All he could see in the bed of her was a mass of dark hair. He kissed the hair and wondered, not for the first time, why things couldn't always be like the previous night, before they went to bed. He loved Gwen, but she was often hard to live with, and he sometimes wondered if she really loved him.

Gwen awoke shortly after Rhys had left. She got up, half asleep still, and went to the bathroom and saw an hideous sight coming toward her, reflected in the large bathroom mirror. It was a moment before she realized the hideous sight was herself. Overnight she had become covered in hair. She was hairy from head to foot. The hair on her head was so long it almost reached the floor. Her eyelashes were so long they partly obscured her vision along with her hairy, bushy eyebrows. Her face was covered in hair. She was hairy ALL OVER. She stared at herself and screamed and screamed. Then she telephoned Jack and complained. Jack told her to come to work. Gwen did some more screaming.

After a while she got out Rhys's electric razor and shaved off some of the hair. Within moments it grew back again. She kept trying to remove it and it kept reappearing. She did some more screaming along with a lot of swearing. The hair was not impressed and remained resolutely in place. She sobbed for a while and the hair got wet. It looked slightly better wet, so she soaked herself in the shower and dressed quickly, pulling her clothing on over the wetness, groaning in distress. Eventually, fully clothed, complete with a hat to hide as much of her head as she could, she left for work.

Getting to the car involved some running in case she was spotted, but at last she was inside and behind the wheel. She couldn't see too well, because of her eyelashes and eyebrows, so she drove very slowly and wished all the time that she and Rhys lived nearer the Hub. "It was Rhys's idea to move here" she said aloud to herself "I should have insisted we were nearer. I'm too easy going, that's the trouble."

As usual, all the Traffic signals she came upon were red when she reached them. It was maddening and she was convinced everyone was looking at her through the windows. "We should have had tinted windows" she moaned to herself "why didn't we get tinted windows?" Rhys said they were too expensive, she thought crossly, in answer to her own question.

When the fourth set of traffic light in a row were red, Gwen finally lost her temper and drove straight through them, hitting a small, green and very old Fiesta on the way. As she drove rapidly off she looked back and saw the Fiesta's driver getting out of the car, apparently unharmed, so she thought she would sort it out later and also pay the driver extra for the inconvenience and upset. 

Unfortunately, a Policeman on his way to work was just behind the Fiesta so he became involved in the incident. The Fiesta's driver was indignant and alarmed. "It was a gorilla!" he shouted "it was being driven by a gorilla."

"Are you sure it was a gorilla, Sir?" asked the Policeman, "I'm sure a gorilla would have stopped to see if you were alright."

"It may just have been an ordinary kind of ape" admitted the driver, uncertainly "I saw its face you know, under a hat, it wasn't a costume, it really was something covered in hair."

"I'd better contact the Zoo" said the Policeman "and the Army as well."

"It's that damn Torchwood!" shouted another driver, who had stopped, along with an increasingly large crowd, to see what was happening.

"They let all sorts of weird things come into the City!" shouted someone else.

"I saw a Fish once" said an old lady, who had just been walking by "it was waiting for a bus."

"I saw a flying Frog" said another person "it flew over my House, right over the roof, and it was pink too."

"I'll get the Army first" said the Policeman "we can't have hairy alien apes driving about Cardiff hitting people."

Gwen had to stop before she reached the safety of the Hub because she ran out of petrol. She blamed Rhys. She got out of the car and decided to walk the rest of the way. She kept her head well down and tried to keep away from busy streets. It didn't work. Within ten minutes someone spotted her and shouted "look, there's the killer ape!"

She started to run and soon a large crowd assembled and ran after her. They caught her just outside "Boots" and three men held her firmly until a Truck full of Army personnel arrived. They tied her up and threw her into the Truck. She kept screaming that she was Torchwood and they all said they knew she was and laughed.

She was taken to the Police Station where she had once worked and put into a Cell. Still tied up, she lay on the floor swearing and screaming. Several people she knew came to look at her. She kept telling them who she was but they didn't believe her. Even Andy didn't recognize her. Eventually she stopped screaming and just lay there on the cold floor. Jack should have told me not to eat more than two oranges, she thought desperately, he may be gorgeous but he's a useless leader, I'd be much better, perhaps I can take over some day, get Jack where I want him, naked in a bed and away from Ianto, and me in charge, with my sympathetic nature I'd be a great leader, Rhys at home, Jack at the Hub and everyone hanging on my every word, yes Gwen, we know you're right Gwen, we all love you Gwen. They couldn't manage without me, she thought, I'm so awesome.

While Gwen daydreamed, Jack arrived to take custody of the ape. "We know all about it" he said firmly "I'll deal with it. It got away but it wont get away again."

"It was driving a car" said Captain Johnson, who was in charge of the Army detail "it ran into another vehicle. It was lucky that no-one was injured."

"It's quite intelligent" said Jack "for an ape, that is."

"Are there any more about?" asked the Captain.

"Luckily, no" said Jack.

"I thought taking it to the Base was a bad idea" the Captain explained "we're not equipped to deal with escaped apes. That's why it's here. I hope you can get it back to wherever it came from."

"We'll deal with it" said Jack "the main problem, of course, with this species is, although they can talk, they never listen."

"We noticed that" said Johnson.

Gwen was still in dreamland when Jack arrived to convey her back to the Hub in the SUV. Maddeningly, he said he wouldn't untie her hands until they were in the Hub. However, despite this appalling treatment she was eventually back in the hub and safe, and Jack condescended to untie her hands. She felt like wringing his neck but instead she just gritted her teeth and swore a bit. Owen, Tosh and Ianto came over to where she sat, miserable and angry, on the sofa and looked at her. Owen was grinning irritatingly. Tosh and Ianto looked worried.

"Jack should have told me this would happen" she snapped at them crossly.

"He said don't eat more than two oranges" said Tosh.

"None of us ate more than two" said Owen, still grinning "you should have listened. You NEVER listen to anything."

"I DO" Gwen shouted "he didn't say why. He didn't explain. Now I'm stuck like THIS."

"Serves you right" Owen shouted at her.

By evening Gwen was still angry and was still hairy. Jack told her it would wear off but he didn't know when. Gwen swore some more and spat a bit too. "I'm an ape" she shouted, as Jack wiped spittle off his face "why SHOULDN'T I spit."

"It'll wear off" Jack repeated "but you'd better stay here until it does. Now stay here. Don't go out. Don't go out even it it's dark. You never know who's about and they'll think you're some kind of weird animal. I'll tell Rhys I've sent you on a job and you'll be away for a while. You can watch the Hub now and I can spend the night at Ianto's. Isn't that great? It'll all work out OK. You'll see."

Gwen spent a miserable night alone in the Hub and the next day she was still hairy. She was still hairy when evening came and so she ended up alone in the Hub yet again. She decided to go out for a walk. After all, she reasoned. Everyone will be in bed now so it'll be quite safe. Jack had told her not to go out but she decided to ignore that instruction.

Not far from the invisible elevator in the street up above was a large hole with a barrier around it. Gwen looked down the hole. She couldn't see much, so she leaned over the barrier and fell down the hole. She was so surprised she didn't even scream. At the bottom of the hole was a lot of mud. Gwen landed in the mud with a loud SQUELCH. 

The next day Jack wasn't surprised to find Gwen was no longer in the Hub. After all, she hadn't obeyed anything he'd told her before so why should this be any different, he thought. They all wondered where she'd gone, but before they could even think of looking for her a Weevil was spotted in the City Center stealing women's underwear so they went to deal with that. On the way back to the Hub later they saw some workman filling in a hole near the invisible elevator.

"Bout time they filled in that hole" said Owen, as they briefly watched the workmen "someone might have fallen down it. The barrier around it was very wobbly."

 

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Not for Gwen fans but it's all meant in fun.


End file.
